Since the beginning of the year, I've been working on the book The Joy of Keeping Chickens, written by my very knowledgeable friend Jennifer Megyesi. I'm nearly finished with the final photo edit and am pretty happy with what I was able to get.
Putting what I've learned to the test, we now have a coop and chickens in our own backyard. Above is Rosie, the matriarch of the flock. We also have youngsters named (by our seven-year-old daughter) Goldie, Tick-Tock, Toto, Dorothy and Lucy.
Below are a selection of photographs I'm submitting. Produced by the talented editor Ann Treistman at Skyhorse Publishing in New York, the book should be in stores come February!
From above, a hen laid an egg in the pasture at Back Beyond Farm in Tunbridge, Vt.; Bradford Jones, 8, of Royalton, Vt., holds a newly-born chick that had just hatched from the incubator at Fat Rooster Farm; a henprint is left in the snow after she had walked to the coop to lay an egg at Luna Bleu Farm in South Royalton, Vt.; Apprentice Whitney Taylor of Wellsboro, Penn., holds Poopie Poo, a meat bird she had become attached to — it was destined for the butcher at Fat Rooster Farm but was saved at the end of the day; a Barred Plymouth Rock hen naps at Back Beyond Farm.